Thematic object pairs produce stronger and faster grouping than taxonomic pairs.

Nah, Joseph; Geng, Joy J.

doi:10.1037/xhp0001031

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 68 publications

(127 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, images with heterogenous object semantics elicit more contraction in memory, compared to scenes that contain the same amount of shared semantic label objects (Greene & Trivedi, 2022). This effect is most likely due to related objects being automatically attended together leading to more distributed attention over the scene image (Wei et al, 2018;Mack & Eckstein, 2011;Nah et al, 2021;Nah & Geng, 2022). These results suggest that the objects participants attend to during perception is an important factor determining the trend and degree of transformation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Object-based attention during scene perception elicits boundary contraction in memory

Hall,

Geng

2023

Preprint

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Boundary contraction and extension are two types of scene transformations that occur in memory. In extension, viewers extrapolate information beyond the edges of the image, whereas in contraction, viewers forget information near the edges. Recent work suggests that image composition influences the direction and magnitude of boundary transformation. We hypothesize that selective attention at encoding is an important driver of boundary transformation effects, selective attention to specific objects at encoding leading to boundary contraction. In this study, one group of participants (N=36) memorized 15 scenes while searching for targets, while a separate group (N=36) just memorized the scenes. Both groups then drew the scenes from memory with as much object and spatial detail as they could remember. We asked online workers to provide ratings of boundary transformations in the drawings, as well as how many objects they contained and the precision of remembered object size and location. We found that Search condition drawings showed significantly greater boundary contraction than drawings of the same scenes in the Memorize condition. Search drawings were significantly more likely to contain target objects, and the likelihood to recall other objects in the scene decreased as a function of their distance from the target. These findings suggest that selective attention to a specific object due to a search task at encoding will lead to significant boundary contraction.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Object-based attention during scene perception elicits boundary contraction in memory

Hall,

Geng

2023

Preprint

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“…This stands in contrast to the considerable evidence showing that preparatory attention is flexible, highly adaptive, and sensitive to changing contexts. Many behavioral studies have shown that scene structure, statistically co-occurring object pairs, and large, stable, predictive “anchor objects” are all used to guide attention and locate smaller objects (Battistoni et al, 2017; Boettcher et al, 2018; Castelhano & Krzys, 2020; Castelhano et al, 2009; Collegio et al, 2019; de Lange et al, 2018; Gayet & Peelen, 2022; Hall & Geng, 2024; Helbing et al, 2022; Josephs et al, 2016; Mack & Eckstein, 2011; Malcolm & Shomstein, 2015; Nah & Geng, 2022; Peelen et al, 2024; Vo et al, 2019; Yu et al, 2023; Zhou & Geng, 2024). For example, in a previous behavioral study, we showed that when the target is hard to find, scene information is used as a proxy in the target template to guide attention toward the likely target location more efficiently (Zhou & Geng, 2024).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparatory attentional templates in prefrontal and sensory cortex encode target-associated information

Zhou,

Geng

2024

Preprint

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Visual search relies on the ability to use information about the target in working memory to guide attention and make target-match decisions. This memory representation is referred to as the “attentional” or “target” template and is typically thought to contain veridical target information. However, more recent studies have shown that in complex visual environments, target-associated information is often used to guide attention (Battistoni et al., 2017; de Lange et al., 2018; Peelen et al., 2024; Vo et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2023). This is particularly true when the target is difficult to discriminate (Zhou & Geng, 2024). Here, we use fMRI and multivariate pattern analysis, to test if attentional guidance by target-associated information is explicitly represented in the preparatory period before search begins, either in conjunction with the target or even in place of it. Participants were first trained on four face-scene category pairings. After learning, they engaged in a cued visual search task that began with a face cue, followed by a delay, and then a search display with two lateralized faces, each superimposed on a scene image. The target face appeared on its previously associated scene on 75% of “scene-valid” trials. Our results show that in the cue period, face information was decoded in the fusiform face area (FFA), superior parietal lobule (SPL), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dLPFC). However, during the delay period, face information was no longer decoded from FFA; instead, scene information was now decoded in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and inferior frontal junction (IFJ). These findings demonstrate the dynamic nature of template information during visual search and suggest that target-associated information can be used as a guiding template, even replacing actual target information in the active attentional template.

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“…Many scenes in daily life are meaningfully defined by the specific constellations of objects they contain (e.g., a knife and fork either side of a plate, or a sofa facing a television). Our encounters with such multi-object arrangements are so ubiquitous that the visual system is remarkably sensitive to statistical regularities within these groups, with both the likelihood of objects’ co-occurrence and their configural arrangement influencing the way we search for, attend to, and remember familiar objects (Biederman, 1972; Biederman et al, 1973; Kaiser et al, 2015; Võ et al, 2019; Nah and Geng, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The timecourse of inter-object contextual facilitation

Quek

Theodorou

Peelen

2023

Preprint

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High-level vision is frequently studied at the level of either individual objects or full scenes. An intermediate level of visual organisation that has received less attention is the ″object constellation″, defined here as a familiar configuration of contextually-associated objects (e.g., plate + spoon). Recent work has shown that information from multiple objects can be integrated to support observers′ high-level understanding of a ″scene″. Here we used EEG to test when the visual system integrates information across objects to support representations of real-world size. To this end, we briefly presented masked object constellations consisting of either large (e.g., chair + table) or small (e.g., plate + spoon) object silhouettes, while independently varying retinal size. As a control, observers also saw each object silhouette presented in isolation. Behavioural results showed that observers recognized the objects′ real-world size more easily when the silhouettes appeared in pairs than when they appeared in isolation. Representational similarity analysis of EEG data revealed that neural activity patterns captured information about the real-world size of object constellations from ~200 ms after stimulus onset. This representation was stronger for, and specific to, object pairs as compared to single objects, and remained significant after regressing out visual similarity models derived from computational models. These results reveal the neural time course of real-world size extracted from familiar constellations of objects. More generally, they provide evidence for inter-object facilitation of visual processing, leading to a qualitatively different high-level representation of object pairs than single objects.

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Thematic object pairs produce stronger and faster grouping than taxonomic pairs.

Cited by 4 publications

References 68 publications

Object-based attention during scene perception elicits boundary contraction in memory

Object-based attention during scene perception elicits boundary contraction in memory

Preparatory attentional templates in prefrontal and sensory cortex encode target-associated information

The timecourse of inter-object contextual facilitation

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